Once again, it seems that the GOP leadership is having trouble with facts and math.

One of the big sticking points in negotiations to avoid the fiscal cliff is President Obama's insistence that income tax rates go up for the wealthiest Americans. Most congressional Republicans are against that idea. Here's House Speaker John Boehner yesterday.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER: Raising taxes on the so-called top 2 percent, half of those taxpayers are small business owners that pay their taxes through their personal income, tax filing every year.

This is something that John Boehner has said repeatedly, that half of top earners in the country are small business owners. He's also been repeatedly corrected on this by fact-checkers.

The speaker's office says that John Boehner misspoke yesterday, although it is a misstatement that he's made more than once. It is a variation on another GOP talking point, which is that half of all small business income is taxed at those top two rates. That's according to a study by the Joint Committee on Taxation. But that's using a very broad definition of small business. It also includes a lot of law firm partners and hedge fund managers.

Last year, there were some analysts at the Treasury Department who tried to take a closer look at how many top earners really meet the public's idea of a small business. So they threw out all those who were making more than $10 million. At the other end, they threw out people who might have a big salary from a day job and then a little small business on the side.

And when they narrowed the definition that way, what they found was about one in five taxpayers in those top two brackets is a small business owner. And of all the income in those brackets that would be taxed at a higher rate, only about 7 percent comes from small businesses.

And small businesses, again, defined as those making up to $10 million

Now, part of this focus on small business, is because that's supposed to be where a lot of jobs are created. This is another thing that Republicans say time and time again.

You aren't going to get a lot of traction just by defending small businesses per se. But when start talking, saying raising tax rates would cost jobs, then the public starts to pay attention. And that's why in Republican lingo wealthy people are invariably described as job creators.

However, the Congressional Budget Office, when they looked at what the job affect of raising those taxes would be, they found it'd really be pretty tiny, about 200,000 jobs over the course of a decade. Now, that sounds like kind of a lot, but it's only about as many jobs as we've been adding in one or two months. So it's a fairly small effect we're talking about.

What Democrats like to point out is that the rates would just be going back to roughly where they were during the Clinton years. And it certainly didn't hurt job creation in that period. In fact, we'd be well off to have job creation like we did in the 1990s.

Well, if only one in five top earners is, in fact, a small business owner, who are the rest?

Big business owners, financial professionals, doctors, lawyers, the odd NFL quarterback. And also, a lot of two-income families. Remember, the cutoff to be in one of the top two tax brackets is just over $200,000 for an individual, $250,000 for a couple. So they're not all millionaires and billionaires, as President Obama sometimes says, but they're not all plucky mom-and-pop business owners either.

And if you look at polling on this, where is the American public on the question of higher rates for the wealthiest Americans?

The public wants the wealthy to pay more. That was clear in the exit polls. And interestingly, Speaker Boehner's comments came yesterday in response to a Republican congressman who was agreeing with Democrats that we should separate the question of these top tax rates from middle-class tax rates. Democrats say, let's go ahead and preserve the low tax rates for the middle-class and deal with the top 2 percent separately.

Speaker Boehner and most of the Republican leaders are dead set against that. They know that if the top rates have to be considered in isolation, they'll lose and those rates will go up.

As long as the GOP continues to be sock puppets for the super rich elite that is a tiny percentage of our population, they will continue to be less relevant to the rest of us. This is not good representation or governance.

It's time for them to put the well-being of the nation before their ideology.

Tell Mr. President to stop with the victory laps and come up with a plan. The only thing from the white house so far is raise taxes on the rich, ( fair enough), and run through another round of stimulus spending. Not much of a plan. Raising taxes on the rich will take care of a fraction of the deficit.... Maybe. But then spend it all and more on paybacks and failed bailouts?

There is no plan coming out of the White House. Just like there has been no budget for the past four years. How does one go about doing nothing and blame the other side for nothing getting done?

It's like the election is still going on.

I'm predicting that we will go sailing over the cliff with no agreement.. Then our President will come to the rescue of the middle class with a new reduction on taxes and blame it all on the Republicans. But then I thought we would have a new President by now also.

Still ready to pay off that bet.

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it."

Tell Mr. President to stop with the victory laps and come up with a plan. The only thing from the white house so far is raise taxes on the rich, ( fair enough), and run through another round of stimulus spending

How can politicians claim to be so smart and actually be so stupid?If Barry wants everybody to pay their fair share, the absolutely most positive way to achieve that is, everybody pays 10% or 20% or whatever they deem necessary. How is that not totally fair. The person making $20 thousand pays $2 thousand and the person making $20 million pays $2 million. That sounds like a lot, 2 million tax, but they're still millionaires after tax. I can tell you why, because that would be too much tax on the congresspeople and president. That's why!!

[The] rates [suggested by President Obama] would just be going back to roughly where they were during the Clinton years. And it certainly didn't hurt job creation in that period. In fact, we'd be well off to have job creation like we did in the 1990s.

And OR: Of course it feels like the campaign is still going. Did you hear McConnell the day after the election? Not only did it sound like he didn't know it was over, it sounded like he didn't recognize the outcome. And so PBO is calling for the public to voice our support for (or against) his proposal to roll back the Bush tax cuts on the 2% and I am happy about that.

That roll back, in and of itself, is a darn good step in the right direction toward solving some of our fiscal problems. Not a silver bullet, mind you, but a good start.

There was a lot of talk among Democratic voters after the election, complaining that Obama only asked them for money. People spoke of being disappointed after the first election saying they were ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work, but there was nothing but crickets...until the reelection came along and he needed our money again. People wanted to DO something.

Remember July 2011 when the House phone system crashed after the President's speech encouraging citizens to call their representatives and back his "balanced approach to reducing the deficit?" http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/07/26/congress.communications.jammed/index.html That motivated Boehner to cut the so-called Grand Bargain, which the Tea Party whack-jobs walked away from. Some representation. Will of the people my smelly butt.

Now, it seems that the Obama team has learned their lesson and is going to try and directly engage citizens and mobilizing us again to help push this issue once again. Given the continuing obstructionism coming from McConnell and his ilk, I'd say it's a smart and necessary move. Hopefully this time cooler heads will prevail.

Since our economy has improved under the first Obama term (even in the face of obstruction), it's time for the rational folks among us to realize that these policies are WORKING. (Just like they worked during WWII.) The efforts should be supported, not blocked. As I said before, it's time for the GOP to put the well-being of the country before their ideology.

"There was a lot of talk among Democratic voters after the election, complaining that Obama only asked them for money. People spoke of being disappointed after the first election saying they were ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work, but there was nothing but crickets...until the reelection came along and he needed our money again. People wanted to DO something. "------------------------

Yep. So....

Why is there no plan? No ideas other than tax the two percent, which will help only very little. No talk of waste. Only more talk of stimulus.

Lead, damn it!

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it."

Obama is motivating the public to direct the "leaders" to enact their will: raising the taxes on the top 2% back to the rates in the 90s. Like my old bumper sticker used to say, "If the people lead, the leaders will follow."

If the GOP thinks that there's waste to be cut, I haven't heard it from them either. All I've heard is NO to the taxes and threats to cut the safety net (which they like to call "entitlements" even though it's our tax money that establishes those programs).

If the GOP "leadership" can't come up with any ideas of where to look, I can suggest a few places to start.

And OR & Mr. Bad, since I'd label the two of you as the endangered species of rational thinking conservatives, I'd suggest that it's folks like you that need to push your representatives to do exactly that: represent. If you have solid ideas of waste that can be cut, they need to hear what that is and, frankly, I'd like to hear as well. I imagine it'd result in establishing even more common ground.

"I'd say that's exactly what he's doing. Bully pulpit and all that. You obviously disagree with my interpretation."-------------------------Probably more than anything we've disagreed about before.

I've ignored the "roots" of our President's past. Not racial but Chicago roots. I've ignored the pandering to the masses by way of division and deceit. (It's always been us vs them according to the politicians, whoever us is.) I laughed at the "birthers", the Muslim connection, the gay thing. But there are things which I just can't ignore. And if you were I, you couldn't either.

It's the blatant secrecy and topic shifting when something happens that just happens to any president.. ie Benghazi.. (the MSM is just now talking about the cover up AFTER the election), Fast and Furious.. which is now just a memory to most. Eric Holder, and others should be held accountable, but will not be. Every President has had their problems. But none have had this much support and defence from the media. You gotta admit, if Obama had been a Republican during the Benghazi attack, there would have been a sh#tstorm of bad press and probably a different election outcome.

My problem today the storyline President Obama gives us about how much better things will be if we just get those rich sobs to play fair. While I agree that those who can should pay more, it's not the whole story. That is just a drop in the bucket. Our country is failing because our elected officials are afraid their power will be reduced if they vote for a reduction in spending for anyone. Obama knows this, I'm sure, but can't get off topic for fear of the whole truth being told. We are in serious need of a reduction in spending.

I read a good part of the President's budget plan. Mostly feel good broadstrokes that say little but use a lot of key words like Fair and Investments and Two Percenters. If he uses Millionaires and Billionaires in his speechs, why does his tax plan up those earners at 200k ? Because even the 200k earners think they deserve a chunk of those undeserving Millionaires and Billionaires.

Yes, the Republicans are stupid. But the Democrats are just as stupid to think that taxation is the answer. It's time to stop playing to the masses and start saving our country. That's what I meant by stopping the campaign.

Hope you are dry and above water.

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it."

over rated wrote:It's the blatant secrecy and topic shifting when something happens that just happens to any president.. ie Benghazi.. (the MSM is just now talking about the cover up AFTER the election), Fast and Furious.. which is now just a memory to most. Eric Holder, and others should be held accountable, but will not be. Every President has had their problems. But none have had this much support and defence from the media. You gotta admit, if Obama had been a Republican during the Benghazi attack, there would have been a sh#tstorm of bad press and probably a different election outcome.

Hmmmm. You sure about that? What was it... oh yeah: IRAQ. Didn't stop Bush from being re-elected.

In reality, Rice repeatedly qualified her remarks, saying that an investigation was ongoing and that "we don't want to jump to conclusions" before the investigation was finished. She also said that "we look to that investigation to give us the definitive word as to what transpired." So Rice did, in fact, stress that current intelligence was "questionable," to use Mukasey and Bayefsky's word.

Furthermore, credible reporting says that the video did indeed play a role in the Benghazi attack.

Has Rumsfeld been "held accountable?" And surely you remember that it was Holder's predecessor that started Fast & Furious.

I remember the march to war. I remember the MSM buying the Bush BS about WMD. That deference led to thousands and thousands of deaths. I find that complacence far more reprehensible that anything going on now.

Still, those that do bad things should be held accountable. If there was deliberate lying to the American public about Benghazi, then we should know. At the same time, we should know which committees were responsible for cutting embassy security.

I do remember all the bad press over the WMDs and President Bush. I guess we all have our special memories.

If I referenced Fox News as you reference Media Matters, you would have my ****.

But, let's shift the topic... As usual

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it."